


Autumn

by VentoSereno



Series: Vignettes [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Developing Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-18 16:32:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 2,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13685478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VentoSereno/pseuds/VentoSereno
Summary: Covers the beginning of HBP, up until Christmas.Doesn't explicitly cover RL/NT scenes from the canon, but you can very much assume they are happening in the background.





	1. Peace & Quiet

**Author's Note:**

> This was easier than writing part 2 (Leaving) but still not as easy as part 1 (Beginnings), because happy fluff is always fun. 
> 
> Angsty is also quite fun, but I've always got to be careful that I don't stray into the over-dramatic. 
> 
> Reviews/comments always appreciated (and I've now received my first! Yay! Please keep feeding me more.)

Three months later, he's still not written to her. And to add insult to injury, her hair is still mousey brown, dank and lifeless. _It's bloody offensive,_ she fumes to herself.

She shoves the door of the Hog's Head open and steps out into the cold, crisp morning. It's her turn to do the mind-numbingly dull tour of the Hogwarts grounds.

Mind-numbing is fine with her. She tries not to think as she sets out.

Halfway round her tour she runs into Proudfoot. He falls into step with her companionably, and starts nattering on about work, the weather. Safe subjects. All of which is intended to cheer her up, she knows.

She sighs inwardly. She's being ridiculous at the moment, but she's heartbroken, dammit. Why can't people just leave her to get _on_ with it? Yes, she's miserable; yes, she looks like a drowned rat; yes, she's not making things easier for herself, wallowing in her own sorrow.

Well she has right to, doesn't she? She is an adult woman, no matter what Remus thinks. 

She turns to Proudfoot, attempting to look like she's following what he's saying with carefully placed "Mmmms" and the odd emphatic nod.

What's really ridiculous is how she craves company when she is alone, but as soon as she's with someone, anyone, she's desperate to be alone again. She's impossible, but her awareness of it doesn't actually make it any easier.

"And so I said, she's mad, if she thinks we'll do all that overtime for no extra financial incentive..." Proudfoot is trying to draw her out by getting her worked up over the cut to their out-of-hours pay. She couldn't care less about her stupid bonus anymore, though time was she would have been incensed.

Suddenly Proudfoot stops and she almost stumbles into him, dazed. She hasn't listened to a word he's said in the last minute or so, and she dimly tries to replay their one-sided conversation back in her mind.

"Tonks…" he begins awkwardly, as he turns to face her. 

_Oh no,_ she thinks, _not another one of these talks._

She seems to have had many of these recently. Or rather, people have been talking _at_ her, whether it be Molly, her parents, even Dumbledore. She never seems to have much to add to these supposedly two-way conversations about Remus, and never seems to be able to prevent them from happening.

"Look, it's not really my place to say..." he continues, and she thinks, loudly enough she's surprised he can't hear it, _well, don't then._

But it's too late, and he presses on "You've been so down lately, and from what I've understood, over that bloke…Lupin? The werewolf who used to work up at the school?"

She really wasn't expecting him to be this direct. It's the shock of it which stops her from telling him where to stick it. She just opens and closes her mouth at him, like a brown-haired goldfish.

"Look, for what it's worth…if he can't see what he's missing, which seems totally insane to me, then good riddance to bad rubbish. There are plenty of other…interested parties. Who happen not to be dark creatures, as an added bonus". He smiles at her, and she is repulsed.

She's always liked Proudfoot, but this is intolerable. She turns and walks away from him. After a few paces, the Tonks of old seems to surface, and she turns back to say "You're right. It's not your place. And it's none of your business".

She finishes the rest of her round in blessed peace and quiet.


	2. Pining

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things start to get mature from precisely this chapter, hence the rating. 
> 
> I think every subsequent work will have an M or E rating, due to mature language and references to sex.

_He's not pining._

To pine, one must think about the object of one's affections, and he's not allowing himself that luxury.

There is no time to think. His world, which was never very large to start with, has contracted down to basics, to survival. 

Every day, at the forefront of everyone's mind, is the quest for food. This is the obsession of every ragged, down-at-heel werewolf unfortunate enough to be caught up in Greyback's pack. Source the food, get the food, protect the food from others wanting to take it from you, eat the food, repeat. 

Once that is done, usually with no small amount of difficulty, there are other things to take care of - shelter, clothing, warmth. The pack is often on the move so these basic requirements represent themselves with depressing regularity. 

The pack naturally splits into cliques, and Remus has fallen in with a small group he thinks could be susceptible to Dumbledore's proffered message of hope. Despite that, life is hard, and every werewolf must fend for his or herself.

So, even if he wanted to contact her, which he doesn't, there would be no time, and few resources with which to write. And no guarantee that a return owl would find him. 

What little time _is_ left, usually in the evenings, is spent carefully testing the waters, finding out about Greyback's comings and goings, his connections to the Death Eaters. Remus is trying to sound out what the pack as a whole make of this, but it's slow, careful work. 

At night, when he is alone, often cold and hungry, and always miserable, his thoughts turn inexorably to her. It brings him no small measure of comfort to imagine her yes, in the middle of a war, but far, far away from this camp. Away from the likes of him. 

The trouble begins when he falls asleep. There have been few nights where he's not been plagued by dreams. If he's not seeing Sirius fall through the curtain, he sees her.

There are nightmares in which she lies hurt, dead or dying. In the Department of Mysteries, with Bellatrix looming over her. Sometimes Greyback turns to him, smiling horribly, her blood dripping from his jaws. 

More troubling are the dreams in which he wants her. Every time he comes close, the promise of intimacy and pleasure just within reach, it's snatched away again. Those mornings he wakes up, hard. Sometimes, he touches himself until he comes. Sometimes, afterwards, he weeps. 

Every morning, he promises himself that today is the day he's going to stop thinking about her.

And every night he goes to sleep, contemplating, remembering, loving Nymphadora.


	3. Un-answered

_This note is crumpled and dirty and lies forgotten at the back of a drawer. It was returned to the sender after several weeks, with no answer._

R,

Where are you?

I know you said you wouldn't write, but you must be getting your reports to Dumbledore somehow - why can't you include a word in there for me?

I'm so worried about you. 

I love you.

Please come home.

Yours, 

T


	4. Pick-up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tonks is feeling a little sorry for herself here. I quite like this scene, because a part of me rails against JK's "romantic heroine" version of her, who is totally and unrealistically devoted to Remus. In this chapter, Tonks has had enough of feeling rejected and horny, and wants to live a little. 
> 
> Bit of a flash-back here, to one of the vignettes in part 1. In that, Tonks writes to Remus from a mission on the moors, and she mentions that he's lent her his copy of Wuthering Heights for the occasion. (She didn't enjoy it because I've never enjoyed the book, either. God knows why I chose to reference it.)

Six months in, she picks him up in some pub in the next magical town over. It's her night off and she's had enough of Hogsmeade, the dreary rounds, her room at the Hog's Head. 

Mostly she's had enough of moping around, waiting to hear from _him_.

She hadn't intentionally gone out of her way to pick anyone up. She'd just thought it might be nice to do something, to go somewhere. To take back some control over herself. To feel a little of how she used to feel.

She’s arranged to meet a girlfriend from work there, and the two quickly get drunk, bemoaning work and the state of the world.

Then, they move on to subjects that stray too close to home.

"Why won't you tell anyone who he _is_?"

But she won't, she musn't, or this new-found power she feels tonight will be lost. "He's no-one." 

And he isn't really, anymore. Just a ghost these days. More memory than man. 

The pub they're in starts to play terrible music over a cramped dancefloor and Tonks drags her mate onto it. She wants to lose herself in the pounding of the music, forget the war, the constant vigilance. 

_"It could be dangerous."_ Says a familiarly hoarse voice in her mind.

_"What do you care?"_ She thinks. The voice does not reply.

She doesn't clock him till the third or fourth song. At first, in her colourless state, she assumes his stare must be for her friend, but as he moves towards her she realises his attention is focussed solely on her.

She recognises him from the Ministry. She has some vague idea that he's a junior clerk who works down in the courts. She doesn't know his name. 

Ever the Auror, she scans his face against the mental back-up she has of all known Death Eaters, and their sympathisers, but it doesn't throw up any red flags.

She lets him approach, lets herself dance with him. She loses her friend as he pulls her further onto the dancefloor, into the push and pull of the bodies all around them. 

She wishes, more than anything, that he would walk in and see them, see _her_ , now. She wants to hurt him, savagely, as he's hurt her. 

With that hard, cutting feeling inside her she grabs the stranger by the hand and pulls him towards the exit. She casually waves at her mate, then disapparates with him back to her place in London.

He tries to speak then, tries to ask her name, but she makes it clear she isn't interested in anything he has to say by kissing him fiercely, and he seems content to let the matter slide. 

_I want this_ , she thinks. She wants the rough slide of this stranger's tongue on hers, his hands running over her body. It might not be the man she wants, but if she could just work out some of the tension, the lust that has been building inside her for months - missing him, _wanting him_ \- then it's all to the good.

When he's in her flat she has her first creeping doubt. Seeing this stranger amongst her things, on her sofa, where she's been wrapped up in his arms…

_That was one time. Ages ago. It doesn't matter. None of that matters._ She pulls him towards her to stop herself from thinking.

They fall onto the sofa, and in the mad dash to remove each other's clothes, she knocks over a stack of books of the coffee table. The copy of _Wuthering Heights_ Remus had lent her, ages ago, lands by her feet. It gives her pause. 

She stops to look at this stranger, lying half naked on her sofa, erection out of his pants, and her interest in him, or more rightly in the sex she was going to have with him, dies a death. 

He's all wrong. He looks wrong, he feels wrong, he smells wrong. 

She is repulsed. She gets up, pulling her dress back down.

"No. Sorry."

She thinks in this particularly awkward situation, honesty is the best policy. And anyway, she'll never see this bloke again.

"I'm in love with someone else. He's left me. I thought this might help." She says it very quickly, in a flat tone, as if a deadpan delivery could somehow counterbalance the enormousness of what she's just shared.

The stranger takes a moment to collect himself, looking a little horrified, she thinks, at the intensity of the feelings she's just revealed. 

But when he gets up, dressed, dignity partially recovered, he smiles kindly.

"Been there. It's awful, isn't it?"

"Apparently so. Sorry for dragging you here."

He shakes his head. "Forget about it. Forget about him, while you're at it. He's probably not worth it."

She smiles a small smile. "I've heard that a lot."

He's bent over a scrap of parchment on her desk and scribbles a quick note.

"If you ever change your mind…" He smiles at her and leaves. She heaves a sigh of relief.


	5. Everything is fine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I'm posting these updates really fast so I could get to this chapter.
> 
> Things aren't going so well. Tonks is fully embracing her angst and Remus is struggling to hold it together.

Her words haunt him. 

The letter had found him in quiet, secluded spot. Ingenious, the way she'd charmed it to be concealed to everyone but himself. No hooting owl to betray him - it had glowed briefly in the undergrowth at his feet, his name - _in her writing_ \- calling to him. The ingeniousness of it still makes him smile, despite himself. 

_Remus_

He'd felt a combination of dread and _want_ beat through him, sickening in its intensity. He'd stuffed it in the inside pocket of his robes where it had burned against him for the rest of the evening.

_I'm sorry for writing again. I know I promised I wouldn't._

He'd resisted its lure for days, going over the arguments in his mind. Her last note, in September, had left him reeling, shattering what little peace of mind he had left.

_I wish you loved me as I love you._

He'd dared himself to chuck it in the fire, unopened and unread, two nights in a row, but on the third he'd stood up, suddenly, and torn it open with trembling fingers.

_Stupidly, naively, recklessly._

He hadn't answered it, obviously. He doesn't want to, _can't_ , go through all that with her again. He has to focus on his mission. 

_I know it'll pass. I just wish you wouldn't let it - let me - go to waste._

He needs to give her a real chance to get on with her life.

_I tried to have sex with someone else the other night. Is that what you meant when you said I should move on?_

This last line, in particular, is the one that has kept him up for hours at night. 

_Don't answer that. I couldn't go through with it anyway._

She's managing fine without him.

_Please don't die before I get to see you again. Please._

And he's managing fine without her. 

_I love you._

Everything is fine.


	6. At the Burrow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to get some wisdom from an unlikely source

Tonks slumps over a cup of tea and the remains of Molly's best carrot cake, and tries to force a smile on her face.

"I'm fine. Really." she states for the third time, unconvincingly. 

Molly is much too kind to argue the point with her. 

"Of course, dear." A pause. "I don't suppose there's been any word?"

Tonks shakes her head, miserably, and Molly slides another slice of cake onto her plate.

"Never mind. He'll come to his senses. Men always do." she says soothingly, and for a moment, Tonks allows herself to believe it. She feels lulled by the warmth of the kitchen and Molly's tender reassurances. 

Fleur bustles in suddenly, jolting them both out of the moment. Molly visibly bristles. 

"Where is ze chicken? I thought I would make a start on dinner. It is getting late!" Fleur announces, over her shoulder, barely hiding the accusation in her tone.

"I'll get onto it, _dear_. As you can see, we have a guest."

"I should go…" Tonks makes to rise, feeling awkward.

"You will not! You will stay and eat with us."

Fleur turns away from the pantry and appraises Tonks with a cool look. Tonks forces herself to meet her gaze, despite the fact she never feels more like a drowned rat than when she is in Fleur's proximity.

"You are back 'ere again, crying over Remus." Fleur states, simply and boldly, like she's commenting on the weather.

There seems to be little point in denying it, and even though she is stung by her words, Tonks just shrugs in response.

"I would not, if I were you." Fleur says, as she turns around again and starts digging in the vegetable box.

"Well, thanks a lot for your input. Really, very helpful." Tonks lets the sarcasm hang heavily in the air between them. 

Fleur shakes her golden head. "You misunderstand me. I would not worry because 'e will come. And I am never wrong about these things." 

"Right." Tonks barely manages to suppress a roll of her eyes, and Molly smiles at her sympathetically. 

What does Fleur know, about her, Remus, or about anything else, for that matter?

She's about to make her excuses again so she can leave, but Fleur isn't finished. Annoyed at not being taken seriously, she slams a casserole dish onto the table, making both women jump.

"I know. When most men meet me, they are unable to keep their eyes off me." A casual flick of her hair, irrepressible. "When they are not looking at me, I am curious. I look to see where it is that they are looking."

She picks the casserole dish again and moves over to the stove. "Remus' eyes were always on you. So, I tell you again. Stop crying. 'E will come."

Tonks and Molly stare at Fleur in quiet astonishment.


	7. Still Un-answered

_This note has been ripped and is very difficult to decipher. It was never sent._

D,

I wish I could be the man you deserve.

R.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It'll be Christmas soon.


End file.
